New for Windows 8: Problem Descriptions for USB Devices and Hubs in Device Manager

Perhaps the most commonly encountered problem with USB devices is enumeration failure. If a USB device fails to enumerate successfully it will appear in Device Manager with a problem code of 43, and will be listed as an “Unknown Device” If Windows was unable to identify the device before it failed enumeration. There are a number of reasons why a USB device can fail to enumerate, however the specific reason for the failure has not been easily discovered without using diagnostic tools such as USB ETW logging.

Windows 8 will now provide a problem description in Device Manager for USB devices that have failed to enumerate, and for USB hubs that have failed during operation. When one of these failures occurs, the USB device’s status on its “General” property page will display a problem description indicating what the failure was. Below is an example device status for a USB device that failed because it returned an invalid USB configuration descriptor. The problem description is highlighted.

The possible problem descriptions that can be returned for a USB device that failed enumeration in Windows 8 are:

A request for the USB device descriptor failed.

The USB set address request failed.

A USB port reset request failed.

A previous instance of the USB device was not removed.

The USB device returned an invalid USB configuration descriptor.

The USB device returned an invalid USB device descriptor.

Unable to access the registry.

A request for the USB configuration descriptor failed.

A request for the USB device's port status failed.

The USB device returned an invalid serial number string.

The USB set SEL request failed.

A request for the USB BOS descriptor failed.

A request for the USB device qualifier descriptor failed.

A request for the USB serial number string descriptor failed.

A request for the USB language ID string descriptor failed.

A request for the USB product description string descriptor failed.

A request for the Microsoft OS extended configuration descriptor failed.

For a mass storage device that has been prepared for "Safe removal" but not yet removed from the computer, the device should not show at all in Device Manager at all once it is safely removed. Showing it with a yellow exclamation mark and telling the user "To fix this problem, unplug the device and then plug it again" is wrong, not an optimal UX.

This is very annoying I am unable to get to my tower usb ports easily so eveytime this issue happens. Which is almost everyday I have to reboot the machine because I have no mouse or keyboard or unplug the usb devices at the back of the machine.

my hardware is not old. its an i3 cpu and asus board.. this really isn't good enough..

I had a Seagate USB backup drive fail and Windows (Windows 8.1-64) absolutely refused to accept that it was never going to be connected again and kept trying to connect to the device and giving me an "unknown usb device (port reset failed)/ error code 43" error in device manager, and when I tried just uninstalling it it would always reappear. Since I was unable to find a way to make it stop I opened a program I had downloaded a long time ago, USBDeviceview (free at http://www.nirsoft.net/…/usb_devices_view.html), and it allowed me to tell windows the device was disconnected. All I had to do was find the device in the list, right click on it and select disconnect device (apparently the f9 key would do the same thing after clicking on/selecting the device). What ever you do don't accidentally disconnect your mouse or keyboard or you'll be scrambling to unplug and replug its cable to get Windows to recognize it again!

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the hubs, but all that did for me was make my mouse and keyboard stop working and make it very hard to reboot (finally had to do a hard reset with the power button). And then when all was "said and done" after that disaster the device and error reappeared.

Brand new HP with Windows 8.1 64 – USB port failure Error 43 failed during use of my Seagate backup drive. and now this same Seagate drive can not been seen by my windows 7 laptop. In fact everything I plug into either USB port on my new laptop fails with error 43 and then no longer works properly on any other laptop…

The seagate drive is still working evening though my windows 7 laptop cannot see the data. With the purchase of seagate rescue recovery software I can recover my files. thank goodness. Seagate tells me I will need to reformat the drive and then it should work again….

However, I still have not been able to resolve the USB port failure Error 43 on the new windows 8.1 laptop. I have tried everything at HP and with Windows support including uninstalling and reinstalling the hubs. I did run an error event report… its greek to me but maybe it will help you to help me solve this problem

I had a similar issue with a generic brand POS receipt printer. Unfortunately I was testing on a PC that ONLY had USB 3 ports, but the live environment POS workstations only had USB 2 ports. When I tested with a USB 2 port all was fixed.